The 2024 group of first-crop stallions appeared to be one of the most competitive of recent years, ranging from top two-year-olds of the ilk of Pinatubo and Earthlight to milers such as Kameko and Mohaather and a middle-distance performer with the brilliance of Ghaiyyath.

With a season of racing behind them, it turns out that they are so far a pretty evenly matched group, with several different leaders when it comes to prize-money, percentage of winners and quality of runners.

Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Sergei Prokofiev set the pace from the outset, firing in an impressive winner on the first day of the Irish Turf Flat season in Arizona Blaze which was backed up by a series of early scorers in the month that followed. Arizona Blaze went on to play a key role in Sergei Prokofiev’s season overall by winning the Group 3 Marble Hill Stakes and running stakes-placed on multiple occasions for Adrian Murray. A tough colt, arguably his best performance came right at the end of his busy campaign when second in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Del Mar.

Sergei Prokofiev was a fast, precocious two-year-old himself relatively typical of the Hennessy and Scat Daddy sire line, and many of his runners who made it to the track in 2024 followed suit. At the time of writing, he had sired 26 winners and the earners of almost £675,000 in Europe to confirm his place as the year’s leading first-crop sire. In addition to Arizona Blaze, they also included Listed scorer Enchanting Empress while three-time winner Mghally is one of the best three-year-olds in Saudi Arabia. Yet plenty seem to have inherited his size and scope so it will be interesting to see how they fare at three and beyond. Unlike several of his contemporaries, he also covered good-sized books beyond his first season so has plenty of younger representatives to go to war with as well.

Sergei Prokofiev was one of 11 European first-crop sires to record a stakes winner and one of five to be represented by multiple scorers. The leader in that division was Shadwell’s Mohaather, who ended the year with three stakes winners to his credit.

Mohaather’s season is representative of a lesson in patience. Well supported as a Sussex Stakes winner, he sired his first winner on July 11, by which time the bulk of his contemporaries were off and away. But then the floodgates opened to the point that he heads into 2025 with over 20 winners on his record, among them the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes scorer Big Mojo and Listed winners Yah Mo Be There and Merveilleux Lapin.

Mohaather was a Group 3-winning two-year-old and belongs to a line, that of Oasis Dream, which is not short of juvenile pace. But he was best as a four-year-old when successful in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes, and so it’s not hard to envisage there being plenty more to come from his progeny.

Kameko, Hello Youmzain, Sands Of Mali and Far Above each also end the year with two stakes winners apiece. Kameko deserves special mention as his duo consist of a Grade 1 winner in New Century, successful in the Summer Stakes in Canada, and a potential top-notcher in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes winner Wimbledon Hawkeye. His fee has been raised to £20,000 at Tweenhills Farm and Stud.

Hello Youmzain’s fee is also on the rise at Haras d’Etreham, leaping from €22,500 to €40,000. The Kodiac horse, a high-class two-year-old himself who was a Group 1-winning sprinter at three, earned early positive reviews from the breeze-up sector and duly made his presence felt as the sire of nearly 20 winners including Group 3 scorers Electrolyte and Misunderstood.

Far Above, who stands for €5,000 at Starfield Stud, has been represented by a pair of Italian Listed winners while Sands Of Mali also deserves credit for holding his own throughout the year off a first-year fee of €6,500. A high winners to runners strike-rate has been one of the hallmarks of his season – it was hovering around 41 per cent at the time of writing – while there is plenty of quality too as illustrated by the Listed winners Ain’t Nobody (who won the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot with another by the stallion, Aviation Time, in third) and Ellaria Sands alongside the Group 2 Lowther Stakes runner-up Time For Sandals. He offers something a bit different as a son of Panis, a sparsely-used French-based stallion by Miswaki, so should he continue to showcase himself in a good light, then he has the potential to become quite an important outlet.

It was a tightly run race between Sands Of Mali and Pinatubo for second behind Sergei Prokofiev in terms of prize-money on the leading European sires’ list. Plenty was expected from Pinatubo as a champion two-year-old son of Shamardal who has been well supported throughout at Dalham Hall Stud, initially at a fee of £35,000. He wasn’t so rapid out of the blocks as some of his rivals but he ends the year as leader by percentage of winners to runners – it was a strong 47 per cent at the time of writing – and a collection of five stakes horses.

Pinatubo also ended the year with a series of promising looking maiden winners as did fellow Darley stallion Ghaiyyath. Time was always going to be a friend to Ghaiyyath’s progeny and as fate would have it for those selling his yearlings, he fired in a flurry of maiden winners just as the yearling sales came to an end. They included six-length Nottingham scorer Gethin, easy Saint-Cloud debut Al Uqda and the Aga Khan’s homebred Mandanaba, who entered the Classic reckoning for 2025 when the six-length winner of her debut at Chantilly.

At the time of writing, Ghaiyyath had sired ten winners in Europe, the same figure as Arc hero Sottsass. Now based in Japan following his sale to the JBBA by Coolmore and Peter Brant, his progeny can also be expected to improve with time.

Earthlight didn’t finish far off the leaders thanks to almost 20 winners headlined by the Group 1 performer Daylight while another son of Shamardal, Shaman, was represented by a high-profile earner in Brian, the winner of close to £100,000. It should also be worth keeping an eye on Without Parole. His winners to runners percentage consistently hovered between the 35 to 40 per cent mark throughout the year and included several highly-rated performers led by the stakes-placed fillies Fiery Lucy and Sea To Sky. Given that he found his own feet as a three-year-old when successful in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes, that start surely bodes well for the future.

 

TAPIT MARES IN FULL FLOW

Tapit is one of those rare all-rounders, a stallion whose influence will live on both as a sire of sires and damsire much like his grandsire A.P. Indy and sire Pulpit before him.

The difference is that Tapit had to make his way from a fee that slumped as low as $12,500 at Gainesway Farm while A.P. Indy and Pulpit always held high order at their respective homes of Lane’s End and Claiborne Farms.

Now 24, Tapit is still in service at Gainesway at $185,000. His days as a multiple record-breaking champion North American sire are behind him but he remains very capable as illustrated by the past 12 months, during which the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap winner Arthur’s Ride and Grade 2-winning juvenile May Day Ready flew the flag among seven stakes winners.

Meanwhile, there are 15 sons stationed at stud in Kentucky headed by the proven Grade 1 sire Constitution, who tops WinStar Farm’s roster at $110,000, and the unbeaten champion Flightline, who heads into his third season at Lane’s End at a fee of $150,000. For their part, Gainesway continues to throw its weight behind the line as the recipient of two new sons for 2025 in the Grade 1 performers Charge It and Tapit Trice.

It is as a broodmare sire though that Tapit really excels. Having been a fixture among the top ten leading North American broodmare sires since 2020, he ended 2024 as the champion in that department for the second year running. Beneath him are a host of venerable names who are either deceased or pensioned; in fact, Tapit is the only active stallion within the top 12.

2023 was underpinned by the champions and/or Classic winners Cody’s Wish, Pretty Mischievous and Arcangelo, and once again Tapit’s latest assault on the title was aided by a typically high-profile collection of individuals. Kingsbarns, one of three Grade 1 winners for the year by Uncle Mo, signed off his career with a win in the Stephen Foster Handicap while Society bagged her second Grade 1 win in the Ballerina Handicap to add further impetus to the highly productive Gun Runner – Tapit cross. Among the two-year-olds, Tenma won the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes in October and Grade 2 Starlet Stakes in December. She is bred along similar lines to Kingsbarns as a daughter of Darley’s Nyquist, the first major son by Uncle Mo to stud.

Tapit closed the year as the damsire of 32 stakes winners, a figure that places him second on a worldwide scale to only Galileo, whose collection of 53 underlines how utterly dominant the late Coolmore phenomenon remains. Yet there were shades of Galileo to Tapit on one Saturday afternoon in December when each of the Graded juvenile stakes races in the US fell to the progeny of one of his daughters.

They included Tenma’s victory in the Starlet Stakes at Del Mar. Meanwhile, over at Aqueduct in New York there was also a Graded stakes double courtesy of Poster and Muhimma.

Godolphin have fared well out of Tapit’s daughters for quite some time, notably as the breeders of multiple Grade 1 winners Pretty Mischievous and Cody’s Wish, and it appears to have struck gold through another daughter Pin Up, dam of the unbeaten Grade 2 Remsen Stakes winner Poster. The Remsen, staged over 9f at Aqueduct, is generally a good indicator regarding the fledgling American Classic crop and in winning the race for Eoin Harty, Poster picked up ten points on the road for the Kentucky Derby. Just for good measure, Tapit was also damsire of the narrow second Aviator Gui, yet another good example of the Uncle Mo – Tapit cross.

Tapit mares also provided a sweep of the top two placings in the other major juvenile event at Aqueduct that day, the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes. Shadwell’s Muhimma, who carries the grey Tapit colouring, justified short odds to make it two from two for Brad Cox ahead of the Medaglia d’Oro filly Ballerina d’Oro, with the pair almost seven lengths clear of the third.

Incidentally, both Poster and Muhimma are by Coolmore’s veteran Kentucky sire Munnings. One of the first sons of Speightstown to stud, Munnings is similar to his sire in that he is capable of throwing talented runners on both turf and dirt. It’s a generally pacy line so it will be interesting to see if the pair can stretch out to two turns next year. Having said that, there is encouragement in Poster’s case given his dam Pin Up is a three-parts sister to Bernardini, who was exceptional over 1m2f back in his day.

The pair were bred when Munnings stood for $40,000. His fee rocketed up to $100,000 for 2023 off the back of a year in 2022 highlighted by the multiple Grade 1 winner Jack Christopher, but it’s back down to $65,000 for 2025. He consistently covers three-figure books at Ashford Stud and given the late flurry of juvenile action, is likely to remain extremely popular at his new fee. There will undoubtedly be plenty of Tapit mares coming his way too, not just in light of Poster and Muhimma but also Juddmonte’s exciting prospect Ramify, another bred on the cross who made light work of her debut at Aqueduct on that same Remsen weekend.